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Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans
In the 1600s, over 350,000 intrepid English men, women, and children migrated to America, leaving behind their homeland for an uncertain future. Whether they settled in Jamestown, Salem, or Barbados, these migrants -- entrepreneurs, soldiers, and pilgrims alike -- faced one incontrovertible England was a very, very long way away.
In Between Two Worlds , celebrated historian Malcolm Gaskill tells the sweeping story of the English experience in America during the first century of colonization. Following a large and varied cast of visionaries and heretics, merchants and warriors, and slaves and rebels, Gaskill brilliantly illuminates the often traumatic challenges the settlers faced. The first waves sought to recreate the English way of life, even to recover a society that was vanishing at home. But they were thwarted at every turn by the perils of a strange continent, unaided by monarchs who first ignored then exploited them. As these colonists strove to leave their mark on the New World, they were forced -- by hardship and hunger, by illness and infighting, and by bloody and desperate battles with Indians -- to innovate and adapt or perish.
As later generations acclimated to the wilderness, they recognized that they had evolved into something no longer just the English in America, they were perhaps not even English at all. These men and women were among the first white Americans, and certainly the most prolific. And as Gaskill shows, in learning to live in an unforgiving world, they had begun a long and fateful journey toward rebellion and, finally, independence
In Between Two Worlds , celebrated historian Malcolm Gaskill tells the sweeping story of the English experience in America during the first century of colonization. Following a large and varied cast of visionaries and heretics, merchants and warriors, and slaves and rebels, Gaskill brilliantly illuminates the often traumatic challenges the settlers faced. The first waves sought to recreate the English way of life, even to recover a society that was vanishing at home. But they were thwarted at every turn by the perils of a strange continent, unaided by monarchs who first ignored then exploited them. As these colonists strove to leave their mark on the New World, they were forced -- by hardship and hunger, by illness and infighting, and by bloody and desperate battles with Indians -- to innovate and adapt or perish.
As later generations acclimated to the wilderness, they recognized that they had evolved into something no longer just the English in America, they were perhaps not even English at all. These men and women were among the first white Americans, and certainly the most prolific. And as Gaskill shows, in learning to live in an unforgiving world, they had begun a long and fateful journey toward rebellion and, finally, independence
512 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2014
About the author
Malcolm Gaskill
11 books66 followersMalcolm Gaskill is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
April 10, 2015
The actual specifics of this whole era of early American history were unknown to me, so this book was very informative in a general way. I definitely enjoyed the particular perspective brought to it in which the author systemstically showed how political and social developments in England from 1600 to around 1750 were refracted through the American colonies. I learned a great deal about the difficulties of the early decades and a lot about the true nature of the Puritan culture in New England. However I didn't find the book especially easy to read, as the author recounted story after story of specific individuals as illustrations but without really ensconcing them in a clear larger analytical frame. The stories themselves were memorable but I did often think, "and why am I reading about him or her?" So in the end it was a bit like a mosaic of a lot of pieces you have to draw back and look at to get a sense of what the overall point or significance was. That said, it was stunning to me that issues at the center of the culture wars of that time, over 400 years ago, are STILL as hot as ever. If there were ever an argument for reading history, this is it.
October 14, 2016
Exactly the history I've been looking for - the interactions of England with her colonies, the political climate of the time and the development of different colonies. Definitely on the scholarly side, but it answered a lot of my questions about the time period and how the politics of England affected who came and went.
February 4, 2018
3.5. Enjoyable but began to meander in the last third of the book.
December 9, 2015
I had to skim this book, as the history of the colonies in the early US of the 1600's makes such gruesome reading. The different groups of colonists fought with each other about religion, were periodically attacked by disease or Indians, and it is a wonder that they survived the first hundred years, and were eventually able to come together in the 1700's to fight for independence.
It appears that the early settlers came for economic reasons and for their own personal religious freedom, not for anyone else's freedom. The ideals of freedom of expression which we cherish, did not apparently exist at that time. Superstition was rampant, and the accusations of witchcraft, and the subsequent witch trials, are well documented.
This book is well written and well documented, however, the stories involve so much contention, disease and death, that I confess I was not at all comfortable reading it. The brutal and bloody attacks on the settlers by the Indians, and on the Indians by the settlers, are especially difficult to read.
I was raised with the stories of the happy, smiling Pilgrims, helped by the kind Indians, which stories unfortunately, were exaggerated and the rough edges smoothed over in the 1950's, when I began my formal schooling. The realities of the 1600's in this country are hard for me to face. I feel fortunate that some of my ancestors survived, and some of my ancestors came in the 1800's in quieter times.
It appears that the early settlers came for economic reasons and for their own personal religious freedom, not for anyone else's freedom. The ideals of freedom of expression which we cherish, did not apparently exist at that time. Superstition was rampant, and the accusations of witchcraft, and the subsequent witch trials, are well documented.
This book is well written and well documented, however, the stories involve so much contention, disease and death, that I confess I was not at all comfortable reading it. The brutal and bloody attacks on the settlers by the Indians, and on the Indians by the settlers, are especially difficult to read.
I was raised with the stories of the happy, smiling Pilgrims, helped by the kind Indians, which stories unfortunately, were exaggerated and the rough edges smoothed over in the 1950's, when I began my formal schooling. The realities of the 1600's in this country are hard for me to face. I feel fortunate that some of my ancestors survived, and some of my ancestors came in the 1800's in quieter times.
March 11, 2015
A good history of English settlers in America during the 17th century. As well as carefully explaining what possessed these people to cross the vast, unforgiving ocean and endure the numerous hardships they were met with on the other side, Gaskill goes deep into the complex to-and-fro of English colonial politics and faith in the Atlantic world. He makes it clear that it wasn't so clean-cut a 'New World' for the pilgrims, prospectors and adventurers who started to build America.
In places I found the writing a little dry and hard-going, but Gaskill makes events like the Indian massacre in Virginia (1622), the battles of King Philip's War (1670s) or the raid on Deerfield (1704) quite vivid and gripping when it's called for, and there was enough that was new to me that it held my interest throughout.
In places I found the writing a little dry and hard-going, but Gaskill makes events like the Indian massacre in Virginia (1622), the battles of King Philip's War (1670s) or the raid on Deerfield (1704) quite vivid and gripping when it's called for, and there was enough that was new to me that it held my interest throughout.
January 25, 2015
Ugh what dry history. I couldn't get past the Preface. Check this sentence:
"Even English political unrest, notably the civil wars of the 1640s, sprang not from failure and despair but from pragmatic self-reflexivity: the creative urge of those quasi-republican citizens and office-holders to confront change and pursue compromise." What?
Not one of the early reviewers gave this book five stars.
"Even English political unrest, notably the civil wars of the 1640s, sprang not from failure and despair but from pragmatic self-reflexivity: the creative urge of those quasi-republican citizens and office-holders to confront change and pursue compromise." What?
Not one of the early reviewers gave this book five stars.
September 8, 2021
This is a fascinating history of the 17th century in colonial America (and the Caribbean) a period which, to my understanding, is rather over-shadowed by the myth of the founding fathers and the birth of the USA.
This birth did not actually take place until a century later, and Gaskill traces the course of a people who existed outside of England but at the same time keen to keep their connection with (their perception of) its ideas and its history, while at the same time existing in a frontier land of great challenges and tolerating hostility from (as well as perpetrating great savagery against) the native people of America.
It's a rich stew and one that is somewhat overwhelming at times - particularly, as Gaskill makes clear, given the diversity of views amongst colonists who were by no means a homogenous body of puritan founding fathers, and given the author's noble attempt to weave the colonial Caribbean into his narrative - but certainly a compelling tale.
My one regret is that I found it such a slog. I do not know why - the prose is limpid (it is by no means a dense book of deliberately exclusive academese) the scope well chosen and cast of characters engaging. This is likely a personal blind spot around religion in history - there is (somewhat inevitably) so much of it that it becomes rather wearying).
Also, the colonies themselves were very small affairs for much of this period - indeed, one of the central issues is the challenge of realising a profitable enterprise out of American colonisation (which makes inclusion of the vast Caribbean sugar plantations slightly jarring given how crucial they were to the coffers of the English (latterly British) state in the eighteenth century).
The issues and events covered in this book are, generally, quite trifling and only occasionally do they develop to larger tableaux (for example, the export of the Civil War in the 1640s, wars with native Americans and, latterly, the French, and the Salem witch trials). Again, this is an issue with the reader's prejudice; the book itself is expressly about the individuals and how they changed and developed over this time. This is not just a matter of dates and kings but is, arguably, much more important as it set the stage for the events of 1776.
This birth did not actually take place until a century later, and Gaskill traces the course of a people who existed outside of England but at the same time keen to keep their connection with (their perception of) its ideas and its history, while at the same time existing in a frontier land of great challenges and tolerating hostility from (as well as perpetrating great savagery against) the native people of America.
It's a rich stew and one that is somewhat overwhelming at times - particularly, as Gaskill makes clear, given the diversity of views amongst colonists who were by no means a homogenous body of puritan founding fathers, and given the author's noble attempt to weave the colonial Caribbean into his narrative - but certainly a compelling tale.
My one regret is that I found it such a slog. I do not know why - the prose is limpid (it is by no means a dense book of deliberately exclusive academese) the scope well chosen and cast of characters engaging. This is likely a personal blind spot around religion in history - there is (somewhat inevitably) so much of it that it becomes rather wearying).
Also, the colonies themselves were very small affairs for much of this period - indeed, one of the central issues is the challenge of realising a profitable enterprise out of American colonisation (which makes inclusion of the vast Caribbean sugar plantations slightly jarring given how crucial they were to the coffers of the English (latterly British) state in the eighteenth century).
The issues and events covered in this book are, generally, quite trifling and only occasionally do they develop to larger tableaux (for example, the export of the Civil War in the 1640s, wars with native Americans and, latterly, the French, and the Salem witch trials). Again, this is an issue with the reader's prejudice; the book itself is expressly about the individuals and how they changed and developed over this time. This is not just a matter of dates and kings but is, arguably, much more important as it set the stage for the events of 1776.
February 12, 2015
WSJ article was great - both content and style, but book is pretty dry and lacks cohesion and engaging style. Has the feel of an unedited research project with tons of historical data, but unclear organization despite the deceivingly "clear" three-part approach. Although there is a story to tell, the thesis of that story is repeated over and over, but an actual story isn't told. Needs a rewrite if it comes to a second edition.
January 27, 2015
Viewpoint of a British historian about the 17th century New World is surprisingly similar to ours. He overcomplicated the story, though, with extraneous details. And, his attempt to portray the Colonies/United States as unexceptional didn't come together.
March 24, 2020
3.5
My complaint stems from how broadening scope this book is. Speaking more than a hundred years, from the founding of Jamestownto the Frenchand Indian War. In would have preferred the book to be formatted differently to be more condensed.
My complaint stems from how broadening scope this book is. Speaking more than a hundred years, from the founding of Jamestownto the Frenchand Indian War. In would have preferred the book to be formatted differently to be more condensed.
March 15, 2026
this wasn't quite what I expected, although what I expected probably was not realistic. I thought it would be a psychosocial exploration in how identities shifted from english to american, and it did do this, but in order to do it, it did a very in-depth history of the colonization of the atlantic seaboard and the caribbean through the 1600s.
I don't know how much of this book I will retain, but definitely one takeaway is how what the US says about its founding is not only not true, but completely inadequate. obviously I know that the story of the pilgrims being helped by the native americans and celebrating thanksgiving together is just whitewashing, but we can basically throw the whole thing out - the pilgrims came here for religious freedom and that's the ideal the US was founded on. no. and I think this really helped me understand something that has never made sense to me and that is the way americans throw the word freedom around while never seeming to actually mean "freedom". I think if you asked americans what is one of the core values of the US, freedom is probably going to come in first place. and yet, the right, who love to wave the flag for freedom, doesn't like transgender people declaring, affirming, and living as their own gender (or lack thereof) as they understand it. (interestingly, there's a case in the book of a soldier, thomas hall, who was questioned in jamestown in 1629 as to whether he was a man or a woman. He had "deformed genitals", so maybe was an intersex person.
born in england, he was christened thomasine and dressed as a girl until puberty, then started wearing men's clothes, became a soldier and fought abroad, went back to dressing as a woman in england, then put on male clothes and emigrated to virginia as a man. the court ruled that hall was both a man and a woman and ordered him to dress as a man, but with a bonnet and apron.) very basic freedoms are routinely vilified. and I think a lot of it goes back to what gaskill talks about in this book - we tend to think of people who leave home for a new life as progressive, but in fact, the colonists were mostly very conservative. they didn't want something new - they wanted something they felt they'd lost. they wanted to "make england great again" by relocating to another country and rebuilding it there the way they wanted. the puritans didn't want religious freedom, they wanted freedom to live by their own very restrictive religious principles, and impose those on everyone around them. liberty was "freedom to obey god's laws" to them - and as with most religion's "god's laws" are very much mediated by a religious elite, be they popes, bishops, and priests or other heads of church. (in fact, it seems that the puritans didn't even let you join the church and have the privileges of membership, including having your children baptized, unless they decided you were saved and god's elect, so most people in puritan colonies weren't even church members.) it's very much what we have today where the evangelical right basically wants a theocracy where everyone lives by their ideas about sexuality, abortion, and the role of women. we can actually see today some right wingers moving to russia for the same reasons - russia encourages them to come and live in a society where they won't have to worry about their kids reading about gay people in school. of course, they get there and get conscripted into the army or realize their neighbors aren't impressed by them etc. and regret it.
anyway, it's been a while since I was in school learning US history, and I'm sure I filled in the blanks on worksheets about jamestown, I know I read the scarlet letter, I've always had an interest in the salem witch trials, so I wasn't completely naive. but I still really did not realize how tenuous of a colonization it really was, nor how much exchange had already taken place. we learn about squanto, friendly native american who helped the pilgrims. I do not remember ever learning that squanto was able to greet them IN ENGLISH because he had already been taken been abducted and sold as a slave in london, learned the language and was able to get back to massachusetts. this is not virgin territory the mayflower is landing at. europeans have been here fishing and abducting already. a few native americans - not just squanto, samoset as well - can already speak english. while squanto was in london, his people, the patuxets, were wiped out by a disease - leaving the empty land where the pilgrims settled. in fact the mayflower was supposed to go to virginia in the first place.
and as far as jamestown, it's not like 300 people came, built a town and struggled through the winter and then the colony just grew from there. the virginia company, trying to build the colony as an investment, was dissolved in 1624, a failure as far as its aims went, but it had established a colony in virginia - however 90 percent of the people who emigrated to virginia from 1607 to 1624 died, 12000 people. people, money, and supplies had to be constantly pumped into the colonies. people died like flies.
although we enshrine the pilgrims in the US mythos, it wasn't where most english emigrated to. over half went to the caribbean, and 75% of the rest went to the chesapeake region. only one in 10 went to new england.
quakers figure prominently because the puritans persecuted them. in fact, in england, people were often horrified by colonial persecution of quakers and native americans. native americans also, I think we tend to think that tribes on the east coast were decimated by disease and then wiped out by settlers, but it wasn't that quick or simple. there was always tension, which spilled into attacks by one side or the other. there was of course the factor of alliances or enmities between tribes and the impact of the colonists on those relationships, as well as the tension between trying to convert the native americans to christianity and just encroaching on their territory. gaskill I think might have been a bit more sympathetic to the native americans (and enslaved people). he didn't take any overtly hostile positions, at all, but he doesn't really carve out any space to look at things from their point of view. he definitely doesn't fall into the liberal trap of idealizing them, and details instances of misogyny and brutality and rape by native americans against their own people as well as the colonists. both sides committed atrocities, and at points it was a near thing - you get the feeling there's a distinct future where the native americans could have prevailed, could have driven out the colonists. starting in 1675, king philip's war in new england laid waste to 12 townships, destroying them completely, having attacked over 50 in all. patuxet, narragansett, deerfield had no house left. providence, swansea, warwick, marlborough, grantham, 1 - 3 houses remaining. hadley, hatfield, sudbury, weymouth, springfield, in ruins. what had taken decades to build was completely destroyed, 10% of the fighting age men were killed or taken captive. and yet, as you can see by the list of towns, they were rebuilt.
so yeah. very interesting. every time I read history I feel like I'm relearning things I'd forgotten, or learning things that had been hidden from me, and there's no telling what particulars I will remember. something that always strikes me from this time period is I think of it as once you cross the ocean, you're never going back, and that's not necessarily true. it was a dangerous voyage of at least two months, but many people went to the colonies and returned to england, or if you were wealthy enough, made visits home. people left and went back to england to fight in the civil war and then came back to the colonies. there was a lot of communication and transit across the ocean.
gaskill is a good writer. there are a lot of names that come up and sometimes that was hard to track - he's talking about well-known political leaders as well as common folk whose letters have survived. the thrust of the book is essentially that people went to the colonies for conservative reasons - even those going just for the hopes of owning land were casting back to a time before elite landowners consolidated their holdings at the common person's expense - that they brought tensions from england with them, that england changed while the colonies formed and those changes affected the colonies (particularly changes of king and with that, state religion and the tolerance for protestant sects) while the experiences of living in the colonies also changed the colonists. english law didn't really cover the colonial experience, and many were there specifically to get around parts of english law they didn't like, particularly as regards things like the usage of the book of common prayer. england wanted the colonies to be a source of revenue; the colonies wanted to keep their value to themselves. in the next century, those tensions would lead to the revolutionary war and the split.
I don't know how much of this book I will retain, but definitely one takeaway is how what the US says about its founding is not only not true, but completely inadequate. obviously I know that the story of the pilgrims being helped by the native americans and celebrating thanksgiving together is just whitewashing, but we can basically throw the whole thing out - the pilgrims came here for religious freedom and that's the ideal the US was founded on. no. and I think this really helped me understand something that has never made sense to me and that is the way americans throw the word freedom around while never seeming to actually mean "freedom". I think if you asked americans what is one of the core values of the US, freedom is probably going to come in first place. and yet, the right, who love to wave the flag for freedom, doesn't like transgender people declaring, affirming, and living as their own gender (or lack thereof) as they understand it. (interestingly, there's a case in the book of a soldier, thomas hall, who was questioned in jamestown in 1629 as to whether he was a man or a woman. He had "deformed genitals", so maybe was an intersex person.
born in england, he was christened thomasine and dressed as a girl until puberty, then started wearing men's clothes, became a soldier and fought abroad, went back to dressing as a woman in england, then put on male clothes and emigrated to virginia as a man. the court ruled that hall was both a man and a woman and ordered him to dress as a man, but with a bonnet and apron.) very basic freedoms are routinely vilified. and I think a lot of it goes back to what gaskill talks about in this book - we tend to think of people who leave home for a new life as progressive, but in fact, the colonists were mostly very conservative. they didn't want something new - they wanted something they felt they'd lost. they wanted to "make england great again" by relocating to another country and rebuilding it there the way they wanted. the puritans didn't want religious freedom, they wanted freedom to live by their own very restrictive religious principles, and impose those on everyone around them. liberty was "freedom to obey god's laws" to them - and as with most religion's "god's laws" are very much mediated by a religious elite, be they popes, bishops, and priests or other heads of church. (in fact, it seems that the puritans didn't even let you join the church and have the privileges of membership, including having your children baptized, unless they decided you were saved and god's elect, so most people in puritan colonies weren't even church members.) it's very much what we have today where the evangelical right basically wants a theocracy where everyone lives by their ideas about sexuality, abortion, and the role of women. we can actually see today some right wingers moving to russia for the same reasons - russia encourages them to come and live in a society where they won't have to worry about their kids reading about gay people in school. of course, they get there and get conscripted into the army or realize their neighbors aren't impressed by them etc. and regret it.
anyway, it's been a while since I was in school learning US history, and I'm sure I filled in the blanks on worksheets about jamestown, I know I read the scarlet letter, I've always had an interest in the salem witch trials, so I wasn't completely naive. but I still really did not realize how tenuous of a colonization it really was, nor how much exchange had already taken place. we learn about squanto, friendly native american who helped the pilgrims. I do not remember ever learning that squanto was able to greet them IN ENGLISH because he had already been taken been abducted and sold as a slave in london, learned the language and was able to get back to massachusetts. this is not virgin territory the mayflower is landing at. europeans have been here fishing and abducting already. a few native americans - not just squanto, samoset as well - can already speak english. while squanto was in london, his people, the patuxets, were wiped out by a disease - leaving the empty land where the pilgrims settled. in fact the mayflower was supposed to go to virginia in the first place.
and as far as jamestown, it's not like 300 people came, built a town and struggled through the winter and then the colony just grew from there. the virginia company, trying to build the colony as an investment, was dissolved in 1624, a failure as far as its aims went, but it had established a colony in virginia - however 90 percent of the people who emigrated to virginia from 1607 to 1624 died, 12000 people. people, money, and supplies had to be constantly pumped into the colonies. people died like flies.
although we enshrine the pilgrims in the US mythos, it wasn't where most english emigrated to. over half went to the caribbean, and 75% of the rest went to the chesapeake region. only one in 10 went to new england.
quakers figure prominently because the puritans persecuted them. in fact, in england, people were often horrified by colonial persecution of quakers and native americans. native americans also, I think we tend to think that tribes on the east coast were decimated by disease and then wiped out by settlers, but it wasn't that quick or simple. there was always tension, which spilled into attacks by one side or the other. there was of course the factor of alliances or enmities between tribes and the impact of the colonists on those relationships, as well as the tension between trying to convert the native americans to christianity and just encroaching on their territory. gaskill I think might have been a bit more sympathetic to the native americans (and enslaved people). he didn't take any overtly hostile positions, at all, but he doesn't really carve out any space to look at things from their point of view. he definitely doesn't fall into the liberal trap of idealizing them, and details instances of misogyny and brutality and rape by native americans against their own people as well as the colonists. both sides committed atrocities, and at points it was a near thing - you get the feeling there's a distinct future where the native americans could have prevailed, could have driven out the colonists. starting in 1675, king philip's war in new england laid waste to 12 townships, destroying them completely, having attacked over 50 in all. patuxet, narragansett, deerfield had no house left. providence, swansea, warwick, marlborough, grantham, 1 - 3 houses remaining. hadley, hatfield, sudbury, weymouth, springfield, in ruins. what had taken decades to build was completely destroyed, 10% of the fighting age men were killed or taken captive. and yet, as you can see by the list of towns, they were rebuilt.
so yeah. very interesting. every time I read history I feel like I'm relearning things I'd forgotten, or learning things that had been hidden from me, and there's no telling what particulars I will remember. something that always strikes me from this time period is I think of it as once you cross the ocean, you're never going back, and that's not necessarily true. it was a dangerous voyage of at least two months, but many people went to the colonies and returned to england, or if you were wealthy enough, made visits home. people left and went back to england to fight in the civil war and then came back to the colonies. there was a lot of communication and transit across the ocean.
gaskill is a good writer. there are a lot of names that come up and sometimes that was hard to track - he's talking about well-known political leaders as well as common folk whose letters have survived. the thrust of the book is essentially that people went to the colonies for conservative reasons - even those going just for the hopes of owning land were casting back to a time before elite landowners consolidated their holdings at the common person's expense - that they brought tensions from england with them, that england changed while the colonies formed and those changes affected the colonies (particularly changes of king and with that, state religion and the tolerance for protestant sects) while the experiences of living in the colonies also changed the colonists. english law didn't really cover the colonial experience, and many were there specifically to get around parts of english law they didn't like, particularly as regards things like the usage of the book of common prayer. england wanted the colonies to be a source of revenue; the colonies wanted to keep their value to themselves. in the next century, those tensions would lead to the revolutionary war and the split.
October 21, 2017
I got through this whole big book so by my rules I have to give it 2 stars. I really did not get much out of it, however.
Basically the book is a whole lot of quoted material from the 17th century from the settlers who were colonizing North America and the Caribbean, but not an organized history. The author doesn't tell us what all these quotes mean.
A second major problem is the material of this period is really terribly, terribly sad. Settlements dying out like Jamestown. Slaughter and war with the Indians, and finally the horror of the witch trials and executions.
So I cannot recommend this work to anyone.
Basically the book is a whole lot of quoted material from the 17th century from the settlers who were colonizing North America and the Caribbean, but not an organized history. The author doesn't tell us what all these quotes mean.
A second major problem is the material of this period is really terribly, terribly sad. Settlements dying out like Jamestown. Slaughter and war with the Indians, and finally the horror of the witch trials and executions.
So I cannot recommend this work to anyone.
May 5, 2019
Ok starting point. Throws in too many names at once without explanation, which makes it more difficult to follow any kind of narrative.
As a postgrad student in the American colonies, I would say I have read better. It's not the most comprehensive, leaves out a lot of significant debates, does not frame the role of Native Americans as well as I would have hoped and overall it is quite obvious that it is written by a historian of Early Modern England who has less experience in writing colonial history.
As a postgrad student in the American colonies, I would say I have read better. It's not the most comprehensive, leaves out a lot of significant debates, does not frame the role of Native Americans as well as I would have hoped and overall it is quite obvious that it is written by a historian of Early Modern England who has less experience in writing colonial history.
December 30, 2014
I very much enjoyed this book. It is a different perspective on the settling of the United States, working back and forth from England to the Colonies and showing how changes in the two countries shaped the Colonies. I listened to the audiobook and while the narration was dispassionate it was not boring. The book was long but held my interest throughout.
April 10, 2019
Unfortunately this goes into the DNF section. It has a lot of promise if you can handle all the back and forth between the story line. It was hard to read for me and I put it back several times before calling it quits. However, I am surprised that we managed as a group of people to manage to not only get to the East coast, but colonize and hold on to it to be where we are today.
October 1, 2023
Excuse for saying that this book was just too boring for my sensibilities. The major thing I took from it was that it made our founding father's desire to have freedom of religion and freedom of speech as foundations of the nation that they wished to create because in the century prior, (ie. the century covered by this book) religion was extraordinarily restrictive and evil and intolerant. The other thing driven home was just how dangerous it was to move to North America; between the Indians who regularly attacked the pioneers and then fire seemed to wipe them out on a semi-regular cycle. How the pioneers pulled this off is extremely impressive
April 11, 2018
Very interesting look at English America, how it started, how it changed the people that went to be the antipathy of what they were. The book was difficult to read because of its use of language, being academically verbose at times, and quoting directly from the Old English. I felt the author could have made it easier by translating the Old English into modern English, but that being said I can understand why he didn’t. But other than that it was a good over history of the time. I learned a lot, including new words!
May 27, 2018
Beginning with the unknown at Roanoke and ending with the madness of witch trials at Salem, this is an excellent account of British settlement in America (including Newfoundland, Jamaica, Barbados, etc. and not just the future United States). Attitudes in England are themselves studied. And the two-sided trauma of relations with Native Americans is the tragedy front and center, with the blood-soaked years of King Philip's War as a cinematic climax. Well-documented and engaging.
March 31, 2023
It took me 2 months to listen to this 25 hour audiobook. I am interested in the topic, I wanted to learn, but it was so very dry it was hard to take more than 45min at a time and that was at 1.15x speed. There were so many names and my listening was so spread out that it was hard to remember who was who, why they were mentioned again. I learned a lot but it is not a gripping story: more a stage setting for why the USA is the way it is today. (Spoiler alert: nothing's changed.)
September 19, 2018
I considered abandoning this book many times. I stuck with it. The premise of the book is compelling - basically, the title and subtitle describe that premise - but the content is dry dry dry. Lots of facts but not presented in a very readable way. Too bad.
May 26, 2018
This helps fill the blank in between Plymouth Rock and Pocahontas, and the rise of the 13 colonies that we see in the days of the French and Indian War.
July 27, 2018
insightful
January 12, 2023
One of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. I was engaged from start to finish.
March 5, 2015
A fascinating recount of the early years of 17th Century America. It does expose a lot of the myths about early America. For example the so called "Pilgrims" who were not even close to being the earliest settlers. Well written an researched, I found it easy to read and follow. Highly recommended!
May 24, 2015
Interesting and well researched take on the Europeans coming to the Americas from an English perspective. This book might have been 4 stars but for the reader who did an excellent job bringing the brief dry sections to life.
December 14, 2015
interesting at points but then rambles. also doesn't connect events or topics. all in all its an interesting perspective of the multitude of factors that led to the fracturing of community's identities that created america. however the writing is very dry and jumps around allot.
January 3, 2016
Nonfiction-history
June 29, 2015
Good history of 17th century America - covers entire seaboard from Maine to Caribbean.
October 5, 2015
Uneven - occasionally interesting - other times impenetrable - gave up mid-way through.
January 16, 2016
I couldn't get past the first 40 pages. The sentence structure was disfluent to my ear, and I couldn't retain the infirmation presented. I kept waiting for fluid, clear prose.
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